As a child, Augustine wanted nothing more than to become an orator, gifted in the way of words. Over time he realizes this dream, becoming one of the best orators of his age. After his conversion to Christianity, Augustine takes his skill with rhetoric and sets out to write the tale of his life. He deals with many topics in much detail over the course of the Confessions' thirteen books, but few receive as much attention as Augustine gives to the topics of sin and grace. Augustine ponders sin throughout his life, wondering how a perfect God could allow such wrong to occur. In the Confessions Augustine concludes that man is inherently sinful and cannot engage in any non-sinful behavior except through God's grace.
Augustine spends a great deal of time wondering how sin and evil can coexist with a perfect, incorruptible God. He rejects the dual-minded views of the Manichees, but is not sure what to replace their doctrine with. After much searching, Augustine comes to the realization that it is his free-will which leads to sin. "And when I willed to do anything or not do anything," he says, "I was quite certain that it was myself and no other who willed, and I came to see the cause of my sin lay there" (109).
Sin to Augustine is much more than just conscious actions that bring harm to others. Augustine begins the Confessions by labeling as sins actions he committed as a mere infant. He says that since these same acts would be considered wrong if he were to repeat them as an adult, "this means that what I did then was in fact reprehensible, although ... neither custom or common sense allowed me to be blamed" (8). Augustine's teenage years find him further beguiled by sin, drawn into "a cauldron of illicit loves" merely because he was "in love with love" (35). This "love" is not real love, but only the "madness of lust" (24). He goes on to later broaden his definition of sin to include anything that distracts him from God. He bemoans the pull of temptation, telling God that "unless You quickly showed me my infirmity and admonished me ... I would simply stand gaping [at the temptation]" (202). Despite the very temporary nature of these small distractions, Augustine still desires to have them vanquished, contending that "it is one thing to get up quickly, but a better thing not to fall" (202).
Augustine expresses in the Confessions his belief that man is inherently sinful from birth. As support for this argument he offers a quote from the book of Job, where Job writes that "there is none pure from sin, not even the infant whose life is but a day upon the earth" (8). Augustine also offers as evidence his own childhood, wherein he finds sin as far back as he can possibly remember. Augustine believes that this sinful nature is due to the sin of Adam, and that sin has been passed down through all of mankind by "the bond of original sin whereby we all die in Adam" (78). Though God had created Adam perfect and sinless, Adam's failure resulted in a handicap for the entire human race.
Early in the Confessions Augustine examines what it is that makes him sin and concludes that since men are inherently sinful, non-sinful behavior is impossible except for God's grace. Augustine recounts a story from his youth where he and his friends stole some pears from a neighbor's tree. He says that his "pleasure in it was not what I stole, but that I stole" (31). Though he had no need of the pears, he stole them merely for the thrill of committing the sin and doing what was forbidden. He thanks God for keeping him from committing even more sins than he did, "for what might I not have done, seeing that I loved evil solely because it was evil" (29). Augustine realizes that his sin is his fault -- "I was bound not with the iron of another's chains, but by my own iron will" -- and yet feels powerless to change it -- "Because my will was perverse it changed to lust, and lust yielded to become habit, and habit not resisted became necessity" (135). When Augustine tries to escape the bind of sin on his own, he finds that "the law of sin is the fierce force of habit, by which the mind is drawn and held even against its will" (136).
In part Augustine finds that his inability to stay away from sin rests in his inability to separate that which is sin from that which is good. "I did not realize that it belonged to the very heart of my wretchedness to be so drowned and blinded in it that I could not conceive that light of honor" (104). Even things he knows to be sin sometimes come up on him without him realizing their presence and cause him to "sin unawares, and then grow aware" (198).
Those things that are not always sin, but can be, are particularly troublesome to Augustine. In one instance he is torn on the issue of singing in church. Augustine knows that the singing is not sin in and of itself -- "I feel that by those holy words my mind is kindled more religiously and fervently to a flame of piety because I hear them sung than if they were not sung" -- and yet he struggles to not let the music and singing become more important to him than the message they contain -- "whenever it happens that I am more moved by the singing than by the thing that is sung, I admit that I have grievously sinned, and then I should wish rather to have not heard the singing" (198).
Augustine is forced to conclude that the only way to escape sin is through God's grace. Having already found that he cannot escape sin on his own, he again turns to the Scriptures, this time taking his text from the book of Romans. "Who than should deliver me from the body of this death, but Thy grace only, through Jesus Christ Our Lord" (136)? Augustine realizes the truth in this statement and says to God that "all my hope is naught save in Thy great mercy" (193). God answers and Augustine rejoices, telling God that "it is only by Thy grace and mercy that Thou hast melted away the ice of my sins" (29). He asks God to show him the path he should take. Though his temptations do not vanish with his conversion, Augustine now has the capability to deal with them. "You commanded me ... and since you gave me the power, it was so done" (193).
In the Confessions Augustine brings his audience along as he traces the path he tread on his way to salvation. He makes no attempt to hide his flaws and shortcomings, instead pointing them out to his reader that the reader may learn from his trials. Though side-tracked with many false doctrines on the way to truth, Augustine eventually comes to conclude that man's inherent sinfulness can only be cured by the grace of God.